The Big Deal

Okay, everyone.

I've made a deal with myself.

I've decided to get back into exercising.

I've finally convinced myself that I am sufficiently recovered from giving birth to Russell 14 years ago, and now my body is ready to exercise.

*snort*

I love Leslie Sansone. Maybe I've said that on here before, forgive me if I have, my brain has taken a permanent hiatus......but anyway, I do her Walk Away the Pounds videos, the 1, 2, and 3 mile ones from a few years ago. LOVE THEM! It's a lot of fun and actually a really, really good workout. You know it's a good workout if you are sweating afterwards!

Anyway, I decided that I was going to exercise every day.

Every. Single. Day.

Well, except Sunday.

And I really want to lose 15 lbs.....But I have a weakness: Blended Big Trains.

*Be still my beatin' heart*

My weakness was NOT helping me with losing the weight.

So I had to resort to drastic measures.....

Cut out the Big Trains, baby.

Ahem, back to the subject of this post: The Deal I Made With Myself...right.

"Self (I says to me...yep, I talk to myself, but at least I admit it!), enough of this having a Big Train every day! Here it is, straight up: If you exercise every day, Monday thru Friday, you may have a Big Train on Friday!"

Myself agreed.

I worked out three days last week, 2 days the week before, and this week, today will be my fourth day this week!

I can just taste the icy, frosty Kona goodness cascading down my throat!

Beloved Big Train, here I come!!!!

Pain With No Purpose

Yesterday, the girls and I were doing "The Body Book", which is a reproduceable book with drawings of the different systems of the body that the kids cut out while you teach. We pretty much love this book, it's by Scholastic, and I really do recommend it. (before ya'll go beating yourselves up because you think I'm the perfect teacher and I'm so on top of things, let me tell ya, we do this book about once every, oh, pink moon, so don't be thinking I've got it all together!!!!!)

We were learning about the skeleton, and while the girls were cutting and taping their skeletons I was naming each bone (yeah, I'm kind of an expert on this, since I DID take anatomy in HS and did love learning all of the 50 letter words for different stuff, uh huh, yeah, expert, yeah, that's me!) and came to the knee cap, aka the patella, and I was telling the girls that I had dislocated both of my knees and that it was just painful.

I said that childbirth was pain with a purpose, but a subluxated patella was just pain without a purpose, when Hannah looked at me and said:

"Maybe the purpose was to teach you to be more careful, Mama."

Out of the mouths of babes.........

Ahem.

Duh.

This is what I felt like the other day.....Like, I'm so sure, why did you have to take a picture of me after I just said the dumbest thing ever??

Here's how the convo went:

ME: Whatcha doin, Honey?

DAVE: Trying to find Aunt Lori's phone number.

ME: Oh, why don't you just call her and ask her????????????????????

Brilliant.

Well.

The family went to the coast yesterday. We went to our favorite beach in celebration of Dave's grueling, long, hard CD project being done. It was almost like he was on vacation! It was that awesome. The drive alone is a blessing.

It was a glorious day yesterday. When we got to the beach, the sun was shining, there were hurricane force winds, and the water was numbingly cold, just like my kids like it! We like to go to Indian Beach and it never disappoints there.

Due to the wind, I chose to feed the baby in the car, and well, let's be honest here.....I had just had an outburst of needless rage at my husband and told him to get the, ahem, heck (we all know that is NOT what I said, right?) away from me, which he did. So I was sulking in the car while he was having a fantastic time down at the beach with the kids.

I called him and told him I was ready to come down, only I couldn't make the hike from the car with the car seat and the baby, so he offered to come up and help me, even after I had bitten him headless just moments ago.

So up he came.

A little side story here: there were some guys surfing and they were back and forth between the waves and their cars. They were parked on the side of the main driveway into the parking lot and one of the guys decided he was done catching waves and though he didn't choose to use the bathroom to change his clothes, he was very discreet about getting into his street clothes from his wet suit.

Not so his friend.

So this other guy comes up and starts undressing from his wet suit while talking to his friend. Dave was busy getting the baby into the car seat and I was just idly watching things around me, when I noticed.....

Brace yourselves, people. It gets ugly from here.

The other guy. He had proceeded to take his wet suit pants off and okay, cool, that was fine with me, I thought he was at least going to cover himself while he did it......but no.

Dude was hanging out.

People driving in to the parking lot thought the moon was out at midday, if you get my meaning.

We got a full frontal shot.

Full.

Frontal.

Nudity, people.

We thought we were at a nude beach for a second. And believe me, it was NOT a pretty sight.

Does total shock truly convey what Dave and I were experiencing at this point?

I hardly think so.

I was totally mortified and embarrassed. It was almost too much for this provincial, prudie girl!

Our mouths were hanging agog, and we both looked askance at each other.

Naked Man then began to talk to his friend, gesturing and reenacting his wave performance, all the while displaying full frontal nudity.

Gross.

Thank the Lord the kids were still down at the beach.

So, next time you're in the area and go to Indian Beach:

Beware of nudity.

'Nuff said.

Lucie says:

I know there are more than one or two readers out there reading my Mama's blog!

If you are a lurker, feel comfortable here and feel free to browse around....

But leave my Mama a comment. We love new friends and old friends too!

Needs

Just to show you all that I can post about stuff that is not-so-serious, I give you:

My list of things I would like to have. Now this list isn't exhaustive, and it's not all for me......so here it is:

• Headbands for Lucie. I wish I had a really good friend who had girls so we could get someone's hand-me-downs! Lucie needs headbands in the worst way....we go out and people actually ask me if she's a boy or girl!!!! I looked on eBay and wow, they are sure expensive!
  
• Lucie also needs summer clothes!
• A bouncy seat for Lucie with a toy bar. Right now I just don't have $36-$40 to spend on one.
• A stroller on which the wheel doesn't fall off!
• More long skirts for me.....but I don't think I have managed to lose any more weight since Lucie was born....but I still need skirts!
• Sandals for the girls for summer
• shorts for Russell
• A hair/bang trim for Kellie, Hannah, and Sara, and myself.
• A trip to CA to visit the ol' neighborhood. And the old beach where I spent much of my time.
• New bedding. Blue, cream, brown and wheat colors.
• A pedicure and massage

So, does that list look whiney or really needy?? I guess these things are just on my mind....I like to bring my desires/wants/needs before the Lord. Sometimes He has actually delivered things that I had been praying for, specifically, I was praying a couple of weeks ago for onesies for Lu and what happened? A gal who frequents my mom's coffee stand up north gave her 3 bags of clothes to give to me, and I found a few really cute onesies in there! I was also praying for another fleece zip up jammie gown for Lucie and I had looked exhaustively for one, only to find out that they were like $30! Guess what? There was one in one of those bags! So God is good like that, and I know He cares about everything I need or want......

I will keep on praying for these things.....and I will use this post to challenge you all to begin to pray specifically! Pray without ceasing! Pray about everything! He understands and wants to hear about your desires, wants, needs and all that's in your heart. He's good like that!

Dave

Yesterday's post was quite the downer, wasn't it???

But thanks for letting me vent....

Right now I'm listening to my husband "clean up" one of the pieces he's doing for this music project. I must tell you that it is his finest work. He has poured himself into this project, and that's what people get when they hire him: everything. This piece that he is currently fixing sounds like the mountains on a snowy day......like a rushing river......like the sunrise on a beautiful morning......like majesty, grace, and praise all in one! It is beautiful. I have to say that my husband's music has the power to lift me out of any funk I'm in. Ah, how privileged I am to get to live with this man and his talent on loan from God. I don't take it lightly by any stretch of the imagination!

I never paid much attention to music, really, before I met Dave when I was 15. We met at church, in youth group. He was a youth counselor and I was on the worship team, so we weren't allowed to "date" or even sit close together. These rules were designed for our protection, but you know, there are still lots of opportunities to get into "trouble" anyway, but that's not what this post is about!!

Shortly after we met and established that we were "together", we went to the church and he began to play some of his music for me at the piano. Now, the piano at our old church was a concert grand piano, and to me, nobody could play that thing like Dave! Some said that piano had been on the stage at a famous place, but it didn't matter to me, I felt that I was sitting in a famous place, listening to this man play.

This day was significant for one reason: it was the day that I knew that this man was the man I was going to marry. I just felt the Lord whisper to me that he was the one. As his music rolled over me like the ocean, so did the certainty that we would spend our lives together.

So here we are, almost 21 years later. No, we haven't been married that long, but we have been together that long, and I have gotten to see the maturing and deepening of his musical talents. I have had the privilege, for the past almost 16 years, to listen to his music come together almost daily, and I am so proud of him.

I can't wait to see what the rest of this year holds for him and for us as a family. I encourage you to go to his website, www.davidgilchrist.com, and listen to his stuff.

You'll be glad you did.